- I bid you adieu, 2006
- Open source franchising
- 2006 trends carrying into 2007
- Should vendors make tools for masses or pros?
- The benefits of backup
- The future of enterprise search
- Eyeing '07
- Anyone remember Rupert Tollefson?
- The consolidation continues in storage and mobile devices
- InfoWorld Daily Podcast
December 29, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Notes from the field: Robert X. closes out this year's columns with a question that could be applied to last year, the year before that, and it will linger through the next as well. Why is Microsoft tech support so horrible? The latest: a Cringester who contacted Microsoft received in return an e-mail with too many questions and even more troubleshooting steps. The Reverand Sun Myung Moon makes a guest appearance. Microsoft tech support swoons, Google promises the moon.
Best of the blogs: Through a public relations firm, Microsoft and AMD apparently are giving some bloggers free notebook PCs with Vista pre-loaded. Why bloggers? Online editor Mike Barton has a theory: they're easier to sway than traditional journalists.
Podcasts: Plowing through despite the holidays David Marshall points out that the path to server virtualization leads to storage; the network-attached variety, specifically. To that end, he examines moves by Hitachi and BlueArc, as well as a survey by Peripherals Concepts. Listen to Virtualization Report.
Happy New Year to all! See you in 2007...
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 29, 2006 10:55 AM
December 29, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Revisiting a topic that has yet to garner much attention, Matt Asay explains open source franchising. Such a model could, in effect, provide basic services at a better price and quality than most enterprise IT shops. Novell with its certification program already in place is poised to take the lead, and Sun is another company Mr. Asay writes is "perfect to trial a franchising program."
New to our site: Well, it's not brand spankin', but Strategic Developer is entering a fresh phase, replete with a new author, the self-described dilletante Martin Heller. To give you some idea of what he means, Mr. Heller started with hex machine code, and he's been at it ever since. Find the Strategic Developer blog here.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 29, 2006 04:54 AM
December 28, 2006 | Comments: (0)
2006 trends carrying into 2007
Columnists' corner: The coming year, no doubt, will be a big one for Redmond. Think Crossbow ("that's next-gen Windows Mobile for those who don't like goofy code-names"), Longhorn, Small Business Server 2007, virtualization. "There'll be a lot more, obviously, but these are the ones I'm thinking about," explains Oliver Rist in Microsoft, version 2007.
Storage: One of the hottest topics of this past year was data deduplication and "it should stay so in 2007," according to Mario Apicella in this week's installment of Storage Insider. "No wonder so many vendors are dancing to the data-deduplication tune: No other technology comes even close to cutting down the amount of required storage," he writes. That's not say that Mr. Apicella has no concerns about the technology, though.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 28, 2006 10:29 AM
December 28, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Should vendors make tools for masses or pros?
Best of the blogs: Product feature lists are a fine balance straddling both effort and return, explains Sean McCown. For instance, should a vendor -- be that Microsoft of any other -- allocate 3 months and 10 developers to create a feature that 500 people are requesting, or invest those resources into a feature 5 experts are asking for? "From what I can tell, Microsoft at least tries to do things right. They pull in customers and run them through the product and give them a set of tasks to perform. They then write the GUI based off of these results," McCown explains in My talk with Microsoft. "My big question now is since the GUI isn't living up to what it should be, is the test flawed, or is the general DBA population filled with idiots?"
Careers: If you happen to be seeking advice on becoming more assertive, Bob Lewis recommends an alternative. "Assertiveness is simply another name for effective negotiation," Lewis writes in Advice Line. "So no matter what the conflict entails, your starting point is to recognize what you want from it and to recognize that it's perfectly okay for you to want it." That's just the beginning.
Operating systems: It's now been a month since Windows Vista became available to enterprise users, but analysts are saying there's been no rush to adopt it. The new OS is already plagued by bugs, application compatibility, and other peripheral issues -- even to the extent that one industry experts suggests "Microsoft never intended anybody to run Vista before January."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 28, 2006 05:18 AM
December 27, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Podcasts: What with 2007 so close, Oliver Rist looks at which technologies SMBs should be considering in the new year. "Office 2007 is a major step up over Office 2003." Plus, what to look for in an online backup package. The technology has gotten much more refined, Rist points out. Listen to Emerging Enterprise.
Columnist's corner: Mr. Rist is not the only one looking ahead, of course. Tom Yager, in 2007: Something for everyone, bids good riddance to the closing year, and advises readers to "create possibilities with an eye toward profiting from them; I forgive you. While we wait like new parents for altruistic motivation to care for others, we waste opportunities where investment serves the needy better than charity."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 27, 2006 05:48 AM
December 26, 2006 | Comments: (0)
The future of enterprise search
Columnist's corner: SAP's plans for 2007 are akin to a sea change taking place across the software industry, explains Ephraim Schwartz in this week's installment of Reality Check. Take Enterprise Search, for instance. "Most search products focus on text. If you're looking for news, reviews, or an esoteric piece of information about an obscure author, Google is the way to go. But what if you want to know the status of a customer shipment, how much inventory is left, who is so-and-so's supervisor, or whether I am authorized to give him or her a raise? These are the kinds of questions Enterprise Search is built to answer."
M&A: Level 3 Communications plunks down $135 million for the content delivery network arm of Savvis, with which it will be able to host rich media including videos and Web 2.0 applications.
Best of the blogs: Microsoft just might be using the public, as in early adopters of Windows Vista, for the final beta testing, according to this Tech Watch post by Mr. Schwartz. "It reminds me of the robot arm GE uses to test how many times you can open and close a refrigerator door before it falls off its hinges. The robot just keeps slamming away, simulating the general public, especially in football season, opening and closing the fridge door," he writes.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 26, 2006 10:57 AM
December 26, 2006 | Comments: (0)
The news beat: Every year brings new opportunities and the coming one will be no exception. The U.S. Congress, for instance, will have the chance to concentrate on issues that the Republicans relegated to a backburner, notably privacy and software patents.
Slideshow: But 2006 is not over yet -- and there's still time for a look back at the year in IT. Highlights include: Windows Vista, Web 2.0, a new frontier in the chip wars, and more. Watch the slideshow here.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 26, 2006 06:35 AM
December 22, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Anyone remember Rupert Tollefson?
In a survey that kinda sorta reminds me of a prank Seattle Weekly pulled in '99, polling firm Zogby International and public-relations house 463 Communications this week published a survey determining that, in the minds of respondents at least, the next Bill Gates, meaning a "wildly successful technology enterpreneur," will not be an American but rather will come from China. While that is a bona fide survey, the Seattle Weekly story I alluded to above, Microsoft's New Brain Project, is really only loosely-related, but it looked at a 9-year old boy it dubbed "Microsoft's most classified program," a.k.a. the next Bill Gates. (In the interest of clarity: make sure to note the date on the story, and then read the corrections box at the bottom. If those clues don't do it for you, then drop me a line at tom_sullivan@infoworld.com.)
New to our site: We've added another blog. This latest, penned by Stephanie Bruzzese and titled Tech Treks, will serve as a forum for her to ask key questions about mobile products and trends, then hear some of your answers. Kicking things off: The great durable-laptop debate.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 22, 2006 04:32 AM
December 21, 2006 | Comments: (0)
The consolidation continues in storage and mobile devices
Storage: Seagate buys EVault for its online network backup, recovery and data protection products. EVault specializes in on-site and in-lab data recovery of corrupted or inaccessible storage devices.
Hardware: Hewlett-Packard, meanwhile, reveals its intent to swallow Bitfone, which it will use to strengthen its iPAQ lineup. The acquired company makes applications that help manufacturers better manage wireless devices.
Operating systems: For those participating in Microsoft's Longhorn beta program, the company issues another build, the December Community Tech Preview. The company says it is on track to finalize the forthcoming server OS by the second half of 2007.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 21, 2006 11:03 AM
December 21, 2006 | Comments: (0)
The InfoWorld Daily Podcast is off for the holidays this week, but please tune in again on Jan. 2 and, in the meantime, feel free to browse the archives
LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 21, 2006 08:10 AM
December 21, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Rediscovering inherent worth of desktop apps
Best of the blogs: Adobe's Apollo project, which will enable apps known as 'gadgets' to be installed on the desktop, is stirring quite a buzz. Bloggers are "talking about Apollo as if this was some revolutionary idea, a program that runs locally," Ephraim Schwartz jests in Reality Check. "The technorati are quite excited about Apollo's ability to create Rich Internet Applications for the desktop. Isn't that what SaaS is all about?"
Podcasts: We've all felt the seasonal frustration that springs from shopping online at major retailers. Ed Foster's readers voice such holiday horrors in the latest Gripe Line. Tune in here.
Applications: BI vendors should be very afraid. That is, the old guard proprietary business intelligence software providers, points out Matt Asay in JasperSoft turn 5,000. "What a great time to be an open source company. As SugarCRM and JasperSoft both demonstrate, open source is an effective way to bring sophisticated technology to the masses, at a price point and in a form that makes them easy to consume."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 21, 2006 04:38 AM
December 20, 2006 | Comments: (0)
The news beat: With year's end fast approaching, a few companies are sneaking corporate acquisitions in before the close. Citrix agrees to buy Ardence and intends to use the obtained technology to add on-demand provisioning to its application delivery platform. Ericsson, meanwhile, nabs Redback Networks, which will become a wholly-owned subsidiary that continues to sell routers for delivering voice, video, data and mobility services.
Podcasts: What's so great about group chat? Well, Oliver Rist has the answer to that, and he also looks into "a great online marketing tool," in Emerging Enterprise.
Best of the blogs: SOA development is getting faster. At least that's what Evans Data has to say about the trend. The analyst firm found that more than 40 percent of developers working on SOA complete a typical project within 3 months, Paul Krill reports in this Tech Watch post. What's more, the survey found that the number of companies with more than 40 Web services in production has doubled in two years, and that's expected to double in the next year.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 20, 2006 10:55 AM
December 20, 2006 | Comments: (0)
A month of Apple bugs to start in January, Firefox fixes Mozilla bugs, Ericsson buys Redback Networks and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 20, 2006 10:36 AM
December 20, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Podcasts: Joining in the crystal ball gazing fun, David Linthicum delivers his own predictions for 2007; these are all about SOA. Tune into Real World SOA.
Best of the blogs: Failed delivery of goods ordered online can be more than just a pain in the neck. In the case of one Gripe Line reader, in fact, the disconnect between retailer and shipping company held the potential to leave him snowbound. "The reader knew that the blizzards were still on their way," Ed Foster reports.
Gift guides: The recommendations just keep on coming. The latest, For that special sys-admin on your holiday list, arrives courtesy of IT Troubleshooter's Harper Mann. Guess what...it's inexpensive, at least for a host, service and network monitoring program.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 20, 2006 04:26 AM
December 19, 2006 | Comments: (0)
When IT battles common bureaucrats
Columnists' corner: It's no secret that more IT projects fail than any company -- except, of course, the vendors -- is bound to be happy about. And they fail for different reasons. In the case of our Off the Record author, it was a simple, straightforward lack of users. Well, not exactly users, but usage. Plus, a commom culture clash pitting a bureaucrat against "highly independent and wildly busy" convention bookers. Yes, this was a recipe for disaster, with IT smack in the middle. Then the ominous e-mails started coming from City Hall...
Security: Hackers are selling code that exploits an unpatched bug in Windows Vista for a cool $50,000. A similar exploit for IE would run about $5000. What remains to be seen, however, is whether anyone has actually paid for the zero-day code yet or not.
The news beat: Oracle simplifies its pricing model to be more consistent across its product lines. CheckPoint nabs NFR Security for $20 million. And Indian operator Idea Cellular is now offering a BlackBerry rival called Easy Mail.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 19, 2006 10:49 AM
December 19, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Malware quantity reigns supreme over quality, hackers put Exploit code targeting Vista up for sale, Linksys debuts iPhone, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 19, 2006 07:49 AM
December 19, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Essential holiday gift guide for geeks and others
Best of the blogs: Well, it's less than a week until Christmas and you likely have a few presents to bag before the big day. With that in mind, Oliver Rist presents his list for techies and non-techies. On it you'll find everything from digital cameras to coffee makers to a sawzall, with lots in between. Oh yes, and the illustrious Mr. Rist kicks it all off with a seasonal poem.
Security: Testing the old theory that 'it's quality, not quantity that matters,' the technical creativity of malware seems to be falling, but the sheer numbers are increasing, and taxing IT shops. Websense, meanwhile, reports that a worm may be spreading through Skype's chat feature via an executable, of course.
Tech Watch: Dusting off the ol' crystal ball, we peer inside to find IT predictions for 2007. Sun gets back on track, but even open sourcing Java won't warm that up very much, for one. Another is that mashups will finally, and formally, meet SOA.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 19, 2006 04:43 AM
December 18, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Does IT own the company Web site?
Best of the blogs: It's a question at least two people at most companies likely grapple with -- just not one that the president and CIO usually duke out. Bob Lewis has a multi-faceted answer, in Advice Line, but at the heart of it all, "If IT isn't performing, keeping the website away from it still leaves the company with an IT organization that isn't performing."
Podcasts: Everyone in the realm, it seems, is going up against VMware. "Another solution that may or may not have been under the radar has slipped in [to the Linux kernel]," David Marshall explains. "If you haven't researched KVM, now might be a good time to start looking into it." Tune into Virtualization Report.
The news beat: Cisco, not Apple, launches an iPhone VoIP handset. First it was notebooks, and now NEC desktops have caught fire in Japan. And BenQ closes its R&D center in Beijing, citing increased losses.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 18, 2006 10:51 AM
December 18, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Talkback: Your news predictions for 2007
Calling your shot in a fluky game such as baseball, with its rotating spheres and cylindrical bats, is almost impossible. Same for IT? InfoWorld editors take a big swing with their news predictions for 2007.
Now it's your say. Tell us how it will play out in 2007, below.
Posted by Mike Barton on December 18, 2006 10:45 AM
December 18, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Panasonic touts safer Li-ion battery, Judge says Intel has to share docs in antitrust case, worm targets Symantec users, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 18, 2006 07:42 AM
December 18, 2006 | Comments: (0)
The unfinished business of open source
Columnists' corner: The year ahead is already looking like it will be "one for settling unfinished business," explains Neil McAllister in What does 2007 hold for open source? The most disruptive event of the year-to-be, he speculates, will come in the form of the GPL version 3. "All in all, expect another exciting but turbulent year."
From the Test Center: Virtualization. SaaS. SOA. Web 2.0. Networked storage. AJAX. These are the among the technologies that manifested in product reviews throughout the past 12 months. In 2006 year in reviews, a look at them all.
The news beat: Panasonic claims to have created a battery that won't overheat. Hewlett-Packard improves the security in its HP-UX operating system with a free upgrade that encrypts data as it gets stored. And Nexaweb enhances its Enterprise Web 2.0 platform with the addition of a client framework for AJAX and Java.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 18, 2006 05:07 AM
December 15, 2006 | Comments: (0)
A proposed New Year's resolution of sorts
From the analysts: Spurred by the desire for an easier way to see his nieces and nephew in this day and age, David Margulius asks in this week's installment "Why can't we have high-quality desktop videoconferencing without making it a federal project?" Good question, indeed, since Margulius and most folks, really, pay a pretty penny for broadband feeding into a fat PC. "Here's who I'm annoyed with: Apple, AT&T, Microsoft, and Skype."
Notes from the field: The incorrigible Robert X. Cringely is presenting his MOONie awards. No relation to the controversial but similar sounding Reverend, of course, these ditties are doled out for the most "Morally Obtuse, Offensive and Noxious behavior in high-tech." And, no, Cringe is not knighting himself with one of these, nor is he accepting such an award from anyone else. The cast of characters likely won't surprise, but his 'tips of the fedora' just might. The biggest rubes, boobs and noobs of '06.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 15, 2006 10:35 AM
December 15, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Talkback: Does Linux have the right stuff for mobile devices?
In this Computeworld article we are running today, reporter David Haskin writes: Linux has been mentioned as a potentially leading platform for mobile devices for as long as there have been mobile devices. However, mobile Linux is still largely missing in action. The new crop of high-visibility smart phones such as the Samsung BlackJack, the Nokia E62 and the Treo 680 are based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile, the Symbian and the aging Palm OS platforms.
So why are some in the mobile industry saying, once again, that Linux is on the brink of becoming a significant platform for advanced mobile devices such as smart phones? And why should anybody but industry insiders and geeks care?
Perhaps, a more apt question for you, dear InfoWorld.com readers, is: Is Linux the best platform for smart devices, and why ... What's wrong with MS, Symbian and Palm OS, and do we need another mobile OS?
Posted by Mike Barton on December 15, 2006 10:30 AM
December 15, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Vista update cracks down on anti-piracy workarounds, Skype begins charging for calls, Microsoft readies a PC-sharing tool, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Caroline Craig on December 15, 2006 07:22 AM
December 15, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Columnists' corner: Roger 'the temporary Grinch' Grimes isn't feeling much of a giving spirit when it comes to certain software. "I've been using backup software for 20 years now," he barks, "and it doesn't seem to get any better. If you can name the popular backup vendor, I can tell you I hate their software." The problem, you see, is that it's too complex -- when it should be reliable and simple. Backup software: Bah, humbug.
Podcasts: Concluding a year chock full o' storage news, happenings, and other buzz, Dell and Microsoft join forces to sculpt file and volume serving on Windows. Tune into Storage Sprawl.
Best of the blogs: "Today it just feels annoying -- like a basic 'right' has been taken from me so as to extend Microsoft's dominance of the desktop to the web," writes Matt Asay in Microsoft: an unfortunate return to its roots? His complaint is about a pop-up Microsoft sent when he tried to click through his RSS reader to a customer case study about SharePoint. "Is this a sign of things to come?"
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 15, 2006 05:52 AM
December 14, 2006 | Comments: (0)
New to our site: Veteran tech journalist (and, coincidentally, one of my favorite InfoWorld columnists and reporters) Ephraim Schwartz founded a new blog that shares the name of his weekly column, Reality Check. In the blog Schwartz promises to keep on poking holes in all that vendor hype.
Podcasts: The importance of data. Nope, not the ghost of Oscar Wilde manifesting as tech podcaster, but, then again, David Linthicum knows a little something Mr. Wilde could not have: service-oriented architecture. "Ultimately, the basic need of SOA is to provide a good representation of the information that's contained in the back-end systems that it's abstracting." The first step: understand application semantics. Tune into the SOA Report.
The news beat: Microsoft preps a tool that enables several mice to be used with a PC at the same time, dubbed MultiPoint. Google unwraps a new service for searching U.S. patents that lets users run queries by keyword, patent number, inventor and filing date. And the EC is aligning radio frequencies so that wireless devices will work anywhere in the European Union.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 14, 2006 11:02 AM
December 14, 2006 | Comments: (0)
HP and Microsoft band together against IBM, Google eyes MS Office clone, Symantec files piracy suit, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 14, 2006 08:07 AM
December 14, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Sean McCown reports that he has never really seen any company care all that much about their DBA tools. And it's not just the sprawling Fortune 500 ones, either. "The amount of time your DBAs spend on the every day management part of their jobs is less time they have to actually be productive. It's an incredible balancing act that the tools have to manage. They have to be extremely useful and save time while at the same time not making the DBA too dumb," he writes in Database management to kill for.
Columnists' corner: Jon Udell is hunting down pieces of the data analysis puzzle, including the CAPStat, Dabble DB, and the latest he has come across is Swivel, the idea of which is inviting people to publish, annotate and share datasets. Despite his cheerleading, though, "the hoped-for citizen-led mashups haven't yet materialized in a big way." But that could change soon -- and social context is the key.
The news beat: Hewlett-Packard's pact with Microsoft to create 30 new products and services is seen as a blow to IBM. Hackers post proof-of-concept attack code that exploits a third worm in Microsoft Word which, like its two recent predecessors, could be used in extremely targeted scenarios. And open source database vendor Ingres teams with Infor to certify the latter's ERP software to run on the Ingres database and middleware.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 14, 2006 04:42 AM
December 13, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Getting your start as a consultant
Best of the blogs: If you're leaving that IT gig and thinking of going out on your own as a contractor or even a consultant, Bob Lewis has some words for you, based on his own experience, of course. "Of all the advice I could give, one issue stands out. The first is that you'll be bringing your intellectual property (IP) into each engagement. You'll refine it while on the clock, and you'll develop new intellectual property as well. Which brings up the question of who owns it when you're done," he writes in Advice for a newbie consultant. "I've personally run across quite a few companies that try to reassign ownership of my IP, so that once I include it in a work product I no longer have the right to use it anymore. I've run across it enough to be pretty sure it's a trend."
Columnists' corner: The SCO Group is a capsized, sinking ship, and one whose investors are sailing away from it, begins Tom Yager in Payback time for Novell. That includes Microsoft, Sun and a whole raft of investors, too. "IBM's role as anchor is finally proving effective, but the torpedo boat is captained by Novell's frighteningly accomplished legal team, ably assisted by the SCO litigation squad, F Troop."
The news beat: Hewlett-Packard is making the upgrade to Vista free, once its widely available, and to customers who purchase certain models of its PCs. The European Union decides not to overhaul its rules on copyright fees. And in emerging markets, mobile phones are proving themselves as devices for more than just talking.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 13, 2006 11:32 AM
December 13, 2006 | Comments: (0)
IBM and Yahoo post free enterprise search tool, Microsoft teams with HP on enterprise software, Microsoft's latest patch lacks Word flaw fixes, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 13, 2006 08:36 AM
December 13, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Maybe Microsoft really does care about DBAs? Well, we'll see...
Best of the blogs: There's no better way to grab the attention of Microsoft, or any other company for that matter, than to point to a shortcoming. That's exactly what Sean McCown has done in a few posts claiming that Microsoft treats DBAs as second-class citizens. Now, he reports, Microsoft has some different views on the matter. Waking the sleeping giant. "What I'm expecting from the conversation is some detail on where we've been with DBA tools, where we are now, and where they plan to take us," McCown writes. See what other readers think about this.
Columnists' corner: Missing that apartment swap in France is one thing. Losing your job is another. But there are bigger tragedies, such as when our Off the Record's European client never even got its computer-based QC and tracking system. And, in this case, it was because the IT guys who had no clue how to complete the project arranged decided to get consultants fired anyway. "In IT, as with most human endeavor, fear of job loss can destroy a lot more than jobs."
The news beat: Skype releases a beta of its software for Windows Mobile-based smart phones that enables such devices to hook into its VoIP service. IBM and Yahoo align to release a free enterprise search tool, called IBM OmniFind Yahoo Edition. And Hewlett-Packard teams up with Microsoft on enterprise software, though the details are due later today.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 13, 2006 04:55 AM
December 12, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Former NASA roboticist Randall Munroe has drawn what Ted Samson calls "an impressively elegant piece of work," which also happens to include a detailed account of how he went about the task." His creation: Webcomic Net map.
Columnists' corner: Predictive analytics sound good, true. But predictitng user behavior is not an exact science, as Ephraim Schwartz explains. By way of an example, he points to an article about the use of predictive analytics to, well, predict which parolees are likely to commit murder. "Whatever the outcome in Philadelphia, this got me to thinking about the use of predictive analytics in more benign areas such as business and IT," Schwartz writes. For one, with this breed of analytics, IT could optimize its assets.
The news beat: Microsoft issues a beta of its Office Communications Server 2007 to about 2,500 IT pros in a private beta. Spanning three countries and five vendors, the investigation into anticompetitive practices of LCD manufacturers widens to include Samsung and Sharp. And Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd says that HP needs to reduce costs and improve efficiency as operations spend is still too high.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 12, 2006 11:02 AM
December 12, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Sun rolls out new Solaris, Java, Intel to ship quad-core server chip early, Dell adds Blu-Ray support to notebook, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Caroline Craig on December 12, 2006 07:58 AM
December 12, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Vista rollout looks rough already
Best of the blogs: Even though the actual software won't be available until next month, it's not too early to tell that "not only are Vista and associated new business products bound to raise hackles on DRM and other fronts, it would appear that Microsoft was not really all that well prepared even to help customers buy the software," reports Ed Foster in Rather rough rollout for Redmond. Take the case of one Gripe Line reader, for instance, who plunked down $15,000 for Office 2007 Pro Plus under his company's volume licensing agreement. Sure, Microsoft took the money, but it also left our reader empty-handed without a place from which to download the software. And another reader had problems of his own when trying to use a Vista upgrade coupon.
Slideshow: The Gift Guide for Gearheads is chock full of things to get your techie, from Zagat's to cameras to Bluetooth devices -- and plenty in between. View it here.
The news beat: Congress passes a bill to make pretexting illegal, known as the Law Enforcement and Phone Privacy Protection Act. RIM sues Samsung over use of the name BlackJack, which the former claims misleads the public into thinking Samsung's goods are connected with RIM's business. And Sun Microsystems releases Solaris 10 11/06; the new incarnation brings security and virtualization enhancements.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 12, 2006 04:31 AM
December 11, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Security: Distinct from the one found last week, Microsoft is warning that a new previously-unknown vulnerability emerged in Word. At least in the case of Word's prior flaw, though, users have to open a malicious Word document to get infected.
Best of the blogs: Admitting that he's a harsh critic of Microsoft's Jim Allchin, Matt Asay in this post points to a piece quoting Allchin as saying "I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft." Asay's response: "Of course you would, Jim, but now you can! Not only because you're retiring, but also because you can run Windows on the new Intel-based Macs. Lucky you! You didn't even have to quit Microsoft to have the pleasure of using a Mac. If only you'd known ... "
The news beat: Sun Microsystems releases Java Standard Edition 6 with a bent toward supporting more languages, including PHP, Python, and Ruby, among others. The WS-I (Web Services Interoperability Organization) publishes draft documents on services and security, focusing on SOA in particular. And InfoSys becomes the first Indian company to join Nasdaq-100.
New to our site: We have a new slideshow, InfoWorld Images of the Week, for which we're keeping watch to include the most compelling shots that defined the week.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 11, 2006 11:06 AM
December 11, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Special edition: senior editor Paul Roberts interviews authentication and fraud detection vendor Bharosa's CEO Jon Fisher LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 11, 2006 06:29 AM
December 11, 2006 | Comments: (0)
The ups and downs of IT in '06
The news beat: If you're head is still spinning from all the IT happening during the last 12 months -- from bold moves to colossal blunders -- then you're not alone. We review the year with a handful of quotes, funny, odd and downright scary.
Browsers: Moving right along, Mozilla ships an alpha version of Firefox 3.0 for developers, cod-named Gran Paradiso, and not at all intended for regular users.
From the Test Center: Delving into VMware's virtual infrastructure, Paul Venezia finds that "VI3 and the VMware team passed our test with flying colors, successfully migrating a number of Windows and Linux systems and impressing us with a wealth of useful tools and automated management capabilities," he writes. That's not to say it was without its quirks. "We also discovered some curious limitations in VI3, however, that made our path to a virtual infrastructure a little less straightforward than it otherwise might have been." Read the full review.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 11, 2006 04:45 AM
December 11, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Quote of the day: Open source no cure all
Too often, commercial software companies decide to turn over their orphaned software to 'the community' -- if such a thing exists -- in the naive belief that open source will be a miracle cure to get a flagging project back on track. This is just another fallacy, as history demonstrates. -- Neil McAllister. The mythical open source miracle.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 11, 2006 04:39 AM
December 08, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Vista: hard to hack, not pirate
Columnists' corner: With Vista, Microsoft is donning a new identity -- that of a secure OS vendor. Thanks to significant new features, in Security Adviser Roger Grimes writes, "I will go out on a limb and say that I believe Windows Vista, and the forthcoming Longhorn server, will be tough to hack." That said, will Vista be penetrable? "Sure, anything super-popular gets hacked."
Notes from the field: Vista may be in OEMs hands, but one Cringeman already found it breaking his Nvidia GeForce GPU, and Nvidia is only saying that new drivers will become available when the OS ships to consumers. Google's Checkout system isn't working so well, either. And Cringe brushes up on acronyms, albeit in his characteristic manner. Vista driver muddle, Google service scuttled.
The news beat: Even though Vista may be less hackable than previous Windows OS's, pirates are working around its activation features already and distributing a file that can be used to circumvent anti-piracy mechanisms. BitTorrent buys uTorrent in its effort to become a viable competitor in the online content realm. And Nasdaq's bid to purchase the London Stock Exchange touches IT.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 8, 2006 10:47 AM
December 08, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Your favorite stories this week
These are the five most popular InfoWorld.com stories for the week beginning December 4, 2006.
5 Special Report: Vista: The next generation
4 Exclusive: Sun's new big iron bends the rules
3 Microsoft and Novell go kablooey, Second Life gets gooey
2 Hunting the elusive search strategy
And...
1 Ubisoft disabling game if virtual drive software is present
Have at 'em.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 8, 2006 09:14 AM
December 08, 2006 | Comments: (0)
HP settles suit with California AG, researchers uncover new hole in Windows Media Player, Oracle ups the ante for its proposed i-flex acquisition LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 8, 2006 07:59 AM
December 08, 2006 | Comments: (0)
HP as a bloody bumbling James Bond
The news beat: The tech sector survived, albeit barely in some cases, more than its fair share of embarrassing gaffes this past year. In the top 10 news stories of 2006, Marc Ferranti of the IDG News Service includes some of those. AOL's massive search data breach, exploding batteries and, of course, Hewlett-Packard's board trying, and failing in a bitter, ugly fashion, to become the new corporate 007. It's not all blushing faces, though.
Columnists' corner: Pretty much everything in life has what the oil industry refers to as an upstream and downstream -- and IT is no exception. "But tracking things accurately starting far upstream may be one of the more daunting challenges facing IT during the next decade," explains David Margulius in this week's installment of From the Analysts. "Alas, there is hope. IT is reaching its tentacles further and further upstream, and downstream, shining light where there was once darkness and ignorance."
Podcast: For his Friday podcast Jon Udell has a conversation with ... Jon Udell. Neither an impostor, a body double, a schizophrenic, nor another man of the same name. In this self-reliant interview Mr. Udell puts himself through a series of questions that reveal why he is taking a job at Microsoft, and what he hopes to accomplish there. "I'll continue to be a channel for alpha geeks," he writes. "But I also want to become a channel for a whole lot of civilians in the mainstream. And above all, I want to build bridges between these two groups."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 8, 2006 04:52 AM
December 08, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Quote of the day: reaching end-users and IT adoption
All those billions spent on enterprise IT (and, specifically, applications)? It's barely touching end users. Only Microsoft truly touches end users in any significant way through its Office product. ECM? Barely touches 5 percent of users within an enterprise. CRM is much the same. ERP? Ditto. To get adoption up, new business models for reaching users need to be innovated, and new cost models need to be devised. Open source is a step in the right direction, as is SaaS. But the real goldmines are yet to be discovered. -- Matt Asay. The next wave of enterprise IT adoption.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 8, 2006 04:01 AM
December 07, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Midnight in the garden of Vista and voodoo
Columnists' corner: Always the intrepid sort, our own Oliver Rist aims to peer into Vista where none others have been. "While the rest of the business world was wondering about the effects of all this Vista voodoo, I wanted to hear Microsoft's opinion," he writes. "Surprise, surprise, they're happy as clams." But that's not to say Mr. Rist expects lightning-quick adoption of the new OS. "Business is business, and investing in new hardware means exhausting the old hardware first." No rush to Vista.
Best of the blogs: Sean McCown uncovered a new product with a sexy voice. (I snagged those words from him, just so you know!). It's DBLaunch for SQL Server and the brogue to which Mr. McCown refers belongs to Sean McLean.
Podcasts: Hewlett-Packard and LSI Logic are simplifying storage as a way to court small businesses, with a focus on SAS and direct connections. Tune into Storage Sprawl.
The news beat: Microsoft's Office Open XML document format is ratified by ECMA as a standard, thereby paving the way to it being fast-tracked by ISO. While analysts and retail chains are saying that its Zune player has gotten off to a slow start, sales-wise, Microsoft predicts it will sell more units in its first 14 months than did Apple's iPod. And Nancy Weil at the IDG News Service weighs in with IT predictions for 2007.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 7, 2006 11:25 AM
December 07, 2006 | Comments: (0)
U.S. DOE says incentives best way to enhance datacenter energy-efficiency, NTT DoCoMo and Mitsubishi recall cell phone batteries, Dell and Microsoft team up on storage system, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 7, 2006 07:59 AM
December 07, 2006 | Comments: (0)
A thin line between IT arrogance and confidence
Careers: We all encounter both confidence and arrogance in the workplace, and it's sometimes difficult to distinguish one from the other. Still, since one reader asked for dueling definitions, Bob Lewis takes a stab. Advice Line. And, yes, there is substantial overlap.
Columnists' corner: AMD is charting a course to eight cores and along the way coined another buzzword, megatasking. "I'm still not positive what AMD means by it, but I'd use it to describe the work style of those on the verge of needing second desktops or workstations to accomplish their heavy mix of foreground applications and background tasks," Tom Yager writes in AMD consolidates the desktop. "But client consolidation isn't as easy as it is with a server because virtualization can't play as significant a role."
The news beat: The U.S. Department of Energy says that incentives, rather than regulations, will boost the energy efficiency of datacenters. Access Co., the Japanese outfit that purchased Palm last year, has in turn sold Palm Inc. a perpetual license for the Palm OS. And StopBadware names an MP3 search site the 'worst of the bad' -- and that's pretty awful.
On a tragic note, CNET senior editor James Kim, the brave soul who sacrificed his own life to save those of his wife, Kati, and two daughters, Penelope and Sabine, was found deceased yesterday in Oregon. CNET editors pulled together this excellent video retrosepctive on Kim's work there. In short: Kim is a true hero and there are not not nearly enough people like him in this world.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 7, 2006 05:17 AM
December 07, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Quote of the day: Getting grid right
Regardless of whatever spiffy Grid enabled universal applications we come up with. Regardless of how interoperable and explicit our standards are. If we don't overcome sociological barriers to Grid when they present themselves, the technology means very little. Perhaps this is the most prominent area where our friends on the academic side of Grid can teach those on the enterprise side. -- Greg Nawrocki. Of grid and men.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 7, 2006 04:09 AM
December 06, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: DBAs need to serve their RSS addiction just like everybody else. With that in mind, Sean McCown downloaded Microsoft's UniveRSS, a 3D RSS reader that draws directly from IE 7. "It's an interesting concept, but I'm just not sure I'm ready for something like this. I don't necessarily want to browse my news like I'm traveling through the galaxy," he writes. "Personally, I hope this project really takes off and becomes more practical. I love cool stuff like this."
Columnists' corner: Our industry has "a sad history of data lock-in," writes Jon Udell in Data export, delivered. He points to himself as an example, having been recruited by civilians to help move mail and contacts from one email program into another. "Even for a geek, the solution can easily become a slide down a slippery slope." Though it takes some finagling, there is an upside. "The fact that it's possible to discover and exploit implicit APIs this way is a testament to the power and flexibility of the Web's architectural style."
The news beat: Microsoft and Dell jointly rolled out a new storage system for file and application data. Sales of Wi-Fi mobile phones that use Skype software and don't need a PC are taking off. And Cisco says it will manufacture some products in India.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 6, 2006 10:56 AM
December 06, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Zero-day flaw found in Word, U.S. proposal to use RFID in passports draws privacy criticisms, Yahoo COO leaves amid shakeup, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 6, 2006 08:59 AM
December 06, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Columnists' corner: IT will have to deal with a host of issues next year, but it is SaaS (software-as-a-service) that may become the most important, writes Eprhaim Schwartz in Easing the burden of SaaS. "Forget about vendors' claims that the SaaS model eliminates the need for significant IT oversight; the opposite is actually closer to the truth." Why? In Schwartz's words: Suppose your company has a payroll of 5,000 or more employees divided into 10 departments and each department uses between four and 10 SaaS applications. IT is dealing with, at the low end, 40 hosting organizations to make sure every user can access SaaS apps at any time from anywhere on any device.
Best of the blogs: One Gripe Line reader calls Hewlett-Packard out for putting time-bombs in printing cartridges, thereby forcing customers to buy new ones, whether they're needed or not. "I figure that it costs me about $20.00 per print when I factor in the time bomb in the printheads. And I can't buy spares for fear they will time out before installation," our reader explains.
The news beat: Microsoft publishes a security advisory stating that a new zero day hole in several versions of Word was found; would-be victims have to open a malicious Word file to fall prey. Netbula slaps Sun and its StorageTek arm with a copyright infringement lawsuit. Hewlett-Packard's third quarter numbers drop. And here's a look back at the year in PCs and chips.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 6, 2006 04:37 AM
December 05, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Questioning virtualization's maturity
Podcasts: Time and time again, virtualization's maturity has been doubted, explains David Marshall. But he insists that it has come a long way in the last seven years. Tune into Virtualization Report.
Best of the blogs: Can't find a Christmas present for your DBA? Then Sean McCown has a list of what the most fashionable DBAs want this year. Books, drives, lights and even a USB cup warmer, among other things, are on it.
Columnists' corner: When a rep at the company that sells VoIP equipment plays dumb as a guise to pile on extras and fatten the bill, it might be time to take matters into your own hands, as our Off the Record author did. In this episode, the star makes a last minute sprint to outwit the vendor.
The news beat: IBM states intentions to buy Consul Risk Management, a company that makes software for tracking and reporting on unauthorized access of corporate information by employees. The French government plans to make the region around Paris into a hub for open-source software development. And LG preps mobile WiMax devices, including a PDA and a Tablet PC.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 5, 2006 11:10 AM
December 05, 2006 | Comments: (0)
IBM issues SOA tools for the desktop, AMD sells first 65-nanometer chips, China surpasses Japan in R&D spending and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 5, 2006 08:43 AM
December 05, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Google meets its Destiny. "The folks at Scentric must feel like a million bucks. Why? Well you would too if you had just persuaded two major vendors such as EMC and Google to buy into your technology," points out Mario Apicella. The deal "opens the way for more focused search solutions for Google enterprise customers and lets Scentric focus on just data classification."
From the feature well: Rather than just resigning your IT department to the role of cost-center, perhaps the time has come to metamorphose it into a group that ultimately makes money for the company. Think this sounds far-fetched? Well, three IT organizations have pulled it off. "Around the globe, there's a new entrepreneurial spirit percolating in IT. Perhaps more a re-awakening -- recall that the first high-profile money-making venture to emerge from an IT shop, the Sabre reservation system, was born decades ago," writes David Margulius in IT as a revenue center.
The news beat: Washington has closed the first case under its 2005 Computer Spyware Act with a settlement that will see the offending company pay $725,000 in legal fees and $200,000 in penalties. The Open Source Development Labs, ODSL, cuts some of its its staff, including CEO Stuart Cohen, and says it will adjust its Linux efforts to focus on fewer projects. And SAP boosts MySAP ERP 2005 with new HCM and financials capabilities.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 5, 2006 04:33 AM
December 05, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Quote of the day: Selling security with fear
That viruses and worms can spread in Vista is a little newsworthy. But really it isn't. If I can convince you to run my malicious executable, it's always game over, regardless of your OS. You can be running Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD ... but if you run my untrusted file meant to cause harm to your system, I can always bypass any defense you have. That's just the facts of life. -- Roger Grimes. Sophos trying to raise Vista scare to sell more product.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 5, 2006 04:08 AM
December 04, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Paying someone $100/hour to search Google for you
Best of the blogs: While the notion of coughing up money so that a software (or any other) vendor merely Googles the information to answer your technical question appears to be ludicrous, "It's not as crazy as it sounds," Jon Udell explains in Hunting the elusive search strategy. "Effective search depends on reservoirs of tacit knowledge and unconscious skill. Some people possess much deeper reservoirs, and/or can tap into them more effectively, than others. That makes them valuable." Well, maybe. But the whole thing has Mr. Udell reflecting on and documenting search habits to figure out precisely what he's learned to do -- and he's hoping readers will share theirs as well.
Hardware: After buying a new Mac, Dave Rosenberg found that it doesn't fit well into his bag and, as such, he's soliciting suggestions. The guy even offered up some criteria the bag should meet, largely related to travel. Share ideas at the Open Source blog or, if you're in the same boat, check out some of the comments other readers have left.
The news beat: IBM issues a new security bundle and blade server tailored specifically for the telecom space. AmberPoint enhances its SOA runtime governance suite with support for Tibco's new ActiveMatrix SOA platform, as well as more application servers. And LSI Logic acquires Agere for $4 billion, a deal that effectively doubles its size and add expertise in storage, mobility and networking.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 4, 2006 11:02 AM
December 04, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Dell unveils two energy-efficient servers, Qualcomm swallows Bluetooth, WLAN companies, Microsoft backs mashups, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 4, 2006 07:44 AM
December 04, 2006 | Comments: (0)
New problems for holiday shoppers already
Best of the blogs: While many stores are offering the option of buying a product online then picking it up at the store, the reality is that for customers this is not so easy, as Ed Foster reports in this Gripe Line post. Lowe's, for instance, charged one reader's credit card, but when he arrived to collect the goods, they didn't even have them in stock, leaving said reader wondering, "This system is guaranteed to result in situations where they collect money from customers for items that they do not have and cannot get. How do corporations get away with treating their customers this way?"
Columnists' corner: Just when IT was starting to understand the two competing document formats, ODF and OpenXML, along comes a third -- in China no less. This one is Uniform Office Format. "The sheer population of China is enough to ensure that UOF will become a significant player on the global IT stage," writes Neil McAllister. China aims to set a new office document standard. "Although no plans have yet been announced to incorporate UOF support into Western office productivity applications such as Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.org, that doesn't mean China plans to remain an island unto itself."
Podcasts: Jon Udell speaks with John Wilkin, director of University of Michigan Library's technology department, which means he's the guy coordinating the library's joint digitization with Google. They discuss how the deal with Google has altered the library's effots to digitize 7 million volumes, and what it all means for the rest of us. Tune in here.
The news beat: Microsoft unveils a new tool to help developers build mashups for mobile devices. Dell unwraps PowerEdge Energy Smart servers, along with claims that the machines are 25 percent better in terms of performance per watt metrics. And AMD gets a subpoena as part of an antitrust investigation about price fixing in the graphics processors and cards market.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 4, 2006 04:54 AM
December 04, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Quote of the day: Time to fire your enterprise architect?
The largest and most disturbing issue ... is the fact that there seems to be a huge chasm between the traditional enterprise architecture crowd, and those looking at the value of SOA. Indeed, enterprise architecture, as a notion, has morphed from an approach for the betterment of corporate IT to a management practice, at least for some. Thus, the person that is needed to understand and implement the value of SOA is sometimes not the current enterprise architect in charge. -- David Linthicum. Should you fire your enterprise architect in 2007? Take the test.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 4, 2006 04:08 AM
December 01, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Build your own blog on InfoWorld.com
New to our site: Online editor Mike Barton set up a blog "to bridge InfoWorld.com and IT Exec-Connect with the latest content that looks likely to spark a conversation between readers and InfoWorld editors." Find Mike's here and you, readers, can create your own blog now, too, at IT-Exec-Connect.
From the analysts: On the prowl for precisely where the next disruptive IT technologies will originate, David Margulius asks, "Who's out there looking at the big picture, incubating the IT solutions we'll need 20, 30 or even 50 years from now?" Wanted: megatrend technology innovators. "Don't be surprised if the next big IT disruptions are driven by global market demand, which may not look the same as U.S. demand."
Notes from the field: You probably thought that Microsoft and Novell had nothing to do with blonds and rock stars, right? Wrong. "I bet this pairing implodes faster than Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson." At least that's what Robert X. Cringely told me. The honorable Cringe also clears up some lingering questions about the difference between a cardsharp and a card shark. Microsoft and Novell go kablooey, Second Life gets gooey.
The news beat: Al-qaeda threatens a cyberattack on U.S. banks and financial instiutions, according to the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, aka US-CERT. Hewlett-Packard sets up an SOA shop in India. And the year in IT quotes.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 1, 2006 11:28 AM
December 01, 2006 | Comments: (0)
This week's readers' favorites
These are the five most popular stories on InfoWorld.com for the week beginning November 27, 2006.
5 Winning IT contracts the military way
4 Special report: Vista: the next generation
3 CA seeks award, AOL charges forward
2 Top AJAX tools deliver rich GUI goodness
And...
1 Permitted Uses: Adobe vs Autodesk EULAs
Enjoy!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 1, 2006 08:53 AM
December 01, 2006 | Comments: (0)
HP CEO Hurd accused of insider trading, AMD shows off quad-core chip, VeriSign approved to operate .com domain for six more years, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 1, 2006 07:39 AM
December 01, 2006 | Comments: (0)
And the HP plot thickens, once again
The news beat: Just when it looked as if the Hewlett-Packard pretexting scandal had queited down a bit ... HP CEO Mark Hurd and seven others are accused of insider trading. The shareholder lawsuit alleges that Hurd and the others sold 1.7 million HP shares at inflated prices in the weeks before the pretexing debacle was revealed.
Columnists' corner: Virtualization has its advantages, no doubt about that. "Of course, for every security benefit a virtual machine provides, a new security threat or risk emerges," Roger Grimes explains in Virtual concerns. Grimes illustrates three such scenarios, including the easy path attackers find once they've broken out of a virtual machine and into the host.
From the feature well: With its SOA centers in China and India, IBM is creating services built on reusable components that can fit the common needs of verticals, such as insurance. With, say, a hundred such reusable SOA components, Big Blue can also build specific solutions for each client. If this sounds a lot like creating software programs, well, IBM insists its strategy is not about getting back to application development, saying it's "not at the stage of the Ford assembly line where you pick your parts and put them all together," nor is it in the pre-assembly line era. SOA centers take apps apart and put them back together.
Q&A: Juergen Rottler is the executive vice president of Oracle Customer Services, which pretty much means he's the guy in charge of its on-demand strategy. In this interview with IDG News Service correspondent China Martens, Rottler discusses Oracle's take on on-demand, how Oracle compares to NetSuite, Salesforce.com and SAP, and its own internal hosted deployments.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 1, 2006 05:42 AM
December 01, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Quote of the day: Never even knew SOA 1.0
When you move from the hyped phase of looking at a new notion, such as SOA, to the realities of actually doing something, you typically find that the hype somehow falls short. While I have not heard about widespread disappointment yet, it's pretty much always an issue in the lifecycle of a TLA. This does not undermine the value of the notion of SOA, but you can't really get "SOA in a box," nor does "SOA 2.0" exist, perhaps because we never figured out what SOA 1.0 was, really. -- Dave Linthicum.